Katz traces the concept of heterosexuality to its roots in the late Victorian Era, before which sexuality (in Western society) was almost exclusively linked to the "True Love... [of] proper procreation, marriage, the legal organization for producing a new set of correctly gendered women and men." In this era of "True Love," sexual desire was not part of the ideal romance; instead, it was relegated to the shadowy figures of the perverse "masturbator" and "prostitute." In the late nineteenth century, Katz describes an economy-driven middle class shift from production to consumption which led to a parallel change in the way the body was viewed; where previously, the body was seen only as a tool for the production of labor, goods, and offspring, the new notion arose of the body as the consumer of goods, leisure, and pleasure. As physicians gained biological knowledge and social authority, the new "heterosexuality" was touted as the healthy drive men and women shared toward procreation, contrasted with all non-procreative sexual activity, which was seen as diverse. Here, Katz points out the construction of the hetero/non-hetero dichotomy: "The attention paid the sexual abnormal created a need to name the sexual normal, the better to distinguish the average him and her from the deviant it."
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the focus of heteronormativity shifted slightly to allow the introduction of sex for pleasure, but the importance of its procreative aim was still socially enforced, and heterosexual attraction was established as the absolute "normal," further marginalizing any non-procreative sexuality. Specifically, the hetero/homo binary was constructed in such a way as to allow more freedom to the idealized heterosexuality for pleasure and procreation, by drawing a strict distinction between "normal" and "other." This heteronormativity was instrumental in the social enforcing of strict gender distinctions, and it re-framed female sexuality as distinct from "early Victorian idea of the pure True Woman." Just before World War II, the term heterosexuality began to gain notoriety, again, as distinct from the perversion of homosexuality.
Paralleling the regression of feminism following World War II, the return to heteronormativity as procreative drive and nuclear family-centered drove the post war baby boom. At the same time, "sex liberalism was in ascendancy," manifesting in the comprehensive study of human sexuality by Alfred Kinsey in the late 1940s. Kinsey postulated a continuum of sexuality to challenge the previous notion of the pure hetero/homo binary, a trend which strangely regresses a bit in the advent of homosexual activism between 1965 and 1982.
Lastly, Katz lays out his "new hypothesis," which aims to view heterosexuality and heteronormativity as social construct, rather than as biological "norm." He encourages us to "pull heterosexuality, homosexuality, and all the sexualities out of the realm of nature and biology [and] into the realm of the social and historical." Similar to the way we must distance ourselves from the concepts of male/female to truly study gender, we must move away from heteronormativity to truly understand the social and historical structures of human sexuality.
My mother, who works with a few LGBTQ outreach groups and heads a chapter of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), regularly runs up against the social problem of heteronormativity, and she sees the social enforcement of the heterosexual ideal in the insecurities of the homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered members of her groups. To help her groups understand the plurality of gender and sexuality, she employs a graphic referred to as the "Genderbread Person"
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In the image, you can see the different aspects of gender and sexual identity and expression presented on four Kinseyan continuums: gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual orientation. In fact we can probably take this several steps further and postulate that there are perhaps infinite distinctions in and around these four categories, but if the study of sociology tells us anything, it is that change occurs incrementally.
As someone who identifies as homosexual, this reading both fascinates and worries me. I long for a world that is post-gender, post-orientation, and post-binary, but a big part of my personality and self expression is that of a gay male. Can I really let these ideas go? Can I follow Katz's new hypothesis? What about you, readers? How important is the duality of homo/hetero to your individual identity? Do you think we, as a society, will ever shed our heteronormativity?
(Source: Katz, Jonathan Ned. "The Invention of Heterosexuality." Socialist Review, vol. 20, no. 1, Jan.-Mar. 1990, pp. 7-34)
I found Katz's article very interesting, my favorite being the way Gore Vidal summed up hetero/homo construction, "there is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts." Unfortunately, I feel there will always be two teams - one good one bad, one normal and one deviant, and society will always govern sexuality based on heteronormativity. I do hope one day society as a whole will stop labeling individuals based on sex, gender, and race
ReplyDeleteI just want to make sure I understand. Are you saying that you think we will get past the dichotomies of male/female and white/non-white (which is essentially what the social racial binary boils down to), but that we will always have the homo/hetero distinction?
DeleteAs @MelindaG stated, one of the most significant quotes from the Katz piece was the one that mentioned the existence of homosexual/heterosexual acts and the no existence of homosexual/heterosexual people. It seems that most ideas of the world, such as the idea of homosexuality, is something that emerged from societal attitudes. Katz references to historical conceptions of normal/ deviant sexual activities allowed for the creation of such attitudes towards homo/hetero acts. A person, despite gender, should not be categorized into a social construction, nor should heteronormativity be the basis of sexuality. As @ThroughtheDin mentioned, we should all long for a world that is post orientation, binary, and gender. As the world is now, we have to work towards that goal if we ever want society to shed its heteronormative culture.
ReplyDeleteWe as human beings have always categorized and labeled things so that we can identify them, which Professor Pok had stated earlier in the semester. This fact also helps me understand how you feel that being a gay man is part of how you identify yourself. However, I feel that LGBTQ people of our society might feel a little more pressured to identify themselves as such, but more in terms of forming unity with other LGBTQ people, but it unfortunately just separates us all more. Our division is a result of our labeling, our desire as humans to be unique or distinct from other humans, and our desires to form unity with other similar/like minded people. With that being said, I have to say I don't have much faith in our society to give up these divisions. The only thing I really think helps people understand LGBTQ people is that sexual orientation is biological, that who we are sexually attracted to is not a choice. I feel that this argument makes more sense in people's minds, and helps them not to be as judgmental of others.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do not really understand is why we have gotten ourselves in this mess in the first place, but I'll save that for philosophy class.
Nonetheless, I absolutely agree with all that Katz has argued, that we should give up heteronormativity, in fact I feel that I already have. It has never mattered to me. But not everyone is like us. It is not important to me to identify myself as a heterosexual woman. I agree that most acts are impulses. It would take a heck of a lot of work to change American society's perception of this, and we have come a long way.
Great response; thank you, thetokenvegan. It's really interesting that one of the cornerstones of the LGBTQ movement is that these lifestyles must be seen as biological orientations, and not as choices. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. For one, the religious argument against most non-heterosexual lifestyles is that they are "sinful," and the concept of sin is that the sinner is choosing to perform the sinful activity. If homosexual attraction is not a choice, then the religious argument is rendered moot. The other, similar, but secular reason for the LGBTQ movement to work against the notion of a chosen sexuality is that it lends legitimacy and solidarity to lifestyles that, if chosen arbitrarily, may be seen as frivolous and unimportant. I personally break with many of my fellow LGBTQ family in that I don't really care how much nature and how much nurture go into my sexuality because I think the concept of "sin" is ridiculous, but I'll save that for philosophy class, too.
DeleteThe way Katz describes the social framework in which homosexuality and heterosexuality are performed (not just as sex acts, but as social categories), indeed BOTH are choices, but not at the level of the individual. Our human sex drives are complex mixtures of hormone cocktails, cognitive-endocrine interactions, evolutionary urges, and intense social pressure exerted on us nearly all of our lives. You might argue that without this societal pressure to categorize, we would all find ourselves in the middle of Kinsey's continuum.
As with any binary system, there is a hierarchy, and the fact that heterosexuality is enforced as our societal norm directly results in the need for all non-heterosexuals to find some kind of label. I think the goal is to see more and more labels become more nuanced and plentiful, until one day the labels themselves (including heterosexuality) become meaningless.
This is probably my favorite post, can I say that? Anyway, I've always thought the heavy focus on the origins of sexual orientation were rather tedious and essentially unproductive in providing proof or justifiable reason for not being straight to our 'straight' and *moral counterparts. I imagine if more focus was placed on biology rather than theology, there would cease to be a need to say, "we'll, this is god's mistake," you know? I am not saying that sexuality does not belong in science, but that is should never be warped past the beauty of just knowing, to silence popular opinions. In terms of binaries, I really wish we lived in a world that celebrated fluidity in every aspect of human behavior. I've never personally felt appropriately placed in the three main categories for orientation so I've been comfortable with queer as of late. I feel like the word queer has such a profoundly inviting vagueness to it that I can't help but love. Gender expression, to me, is an ever-present transition and falls according to the day's feelings. It certainly goes past putting on a bit of extra makeup, but takes a hold of my personality and perception of self in the world. I spent a lot of time marinating on this concept and at a point just decided to unlearn the hetero normative nonsense I'd been inundated with since childhood on applying expression in accordance with biology, and it was the most freeing experience of my life.
DeleteSometimes I think it goes past people "getting over" or "moving past" things, but having them explore their own lives as sexual beings, unyielded by absolutes. I imagine a big part of the need for distinction is the unwillingness in the population to explore unknown realms in themselves. Liberate your libido!
ReplyDeleteThank you for both of your responses, Venusasaboy. I really like your idea of "celebrat[ing] fluidity in every aspect of human behavior."
DeleteGreat comments and responses from the author! Your conversation has raised many important issues including the idea of choice and choosing identity. What if I told you that historically, gay-identified men were more likely to defend homosexuality as biological while gay-identified women were more likely suggest that it was a choice. In light of what you've read about power, masculinity, and femininity, why do you think that might be the case? Why is locating homosexuality as a biological imperative more attractive to one group than to another?
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting point. professor. I'd guess that the subconscious adherence to traditional gender roles is at play here. Namely, the masculine ideal of power and control means that homosexual men are more likely to feel the need to justify their sexuality as a hard biological fact, whereas the feminine focus on subjectivity and freedom means that homosexual women are more likely to embrace the idea of sexuality as a choice, and as a subversion of the patriarchal heteronormative structure which has made homosexuality a cultural taboo. I think the conformist aspect of the traditional male gender role makes it less likely for homosexual men to accept the rebellious nature of a choice-based sexuality, and they will therefore be more likely to work toward finding a place for their orientation within the existing heteronormative structure. Thanks for the feedback!
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